The right side of the pond: It doesn't matter that Khalid Masood thought he was a 'real' Muslim. He was one of the bad guys

Muslim children march during a vigil after the Westminster Bridge attack in March last year. Image: Getty

Saturday, September 22, 2018

In his column, talkRADIO presenter Michael Graham gives a conservative view on current issues.

It’s time for good EU liberals to abandon their obstinate arrogance and take men like Khalid Masood seriously.

We know Masood as a murderer, a man who killed 5 innocent people and injured some 50 others.

But to Masood, what he did was reasonable and right. When he complained on tape to his wife that “I never hear you say that any [ISIS] people might be sincere, genuine Muslims,” he was being - in his opinion - a “sincere, genuine Muslim.”

I’m not saying that Masood actually is a “sincere, genuine Muslim.” I spent four years at an Evangelical college here in the States and I don’t feel qualified to declare who is or isn’t a “sincere, genuine Christian.” What I’m saying is that Masood truly believes he is. So why do we in the West keep arrogantly and condescendingly judging the members of his faith?

'Muslim-haters'

One set of arrogant Westerners are the knee-jerk Muslim-haters who sat through a Tommy Robinson rally and decided they know who the “real” Muslims are. They hear Masood on tape complaining that his wife, also a Muslim, “never says there’s any good in ISIS…you never say, ‘at least they’re fighting the Shia,’ they’re doing some good” and these people - who have never been to a mosque in their lives expect to yell at passers-by - cry “See! We told you this is how Muslims think! It’s a battle of civilizations - fight or die!”

That’s idiocy. If the billion or so Muslims on the planet saw their faith the way Khalid Masood did, we’d be in World War III (or IV or V) by now. Masood’s complaint that his wife didn’t agree is proof that not all Muslims do.

Hundreds of millions of Muslims choose to live peacefully with their neighbors every day. Thousands of Muslims fought side by side with US and UK forces in Iraq and Syria against extremists and thugs.

'We need to stop fighting over Islam'

Muslim armies in the Middle East and Central Asia sent fighters to wage war against their fellow Muslims to restore order and fight terrorism. Today, Egypt and Saudi Arabia are better allies to the Jewish state of Israel than a future Corbyn government of the UK is likely to be.

We need to stop fighting about what we can’t know - what form of Islam is the “true” one - and come to together on what we can: The people in the Muslim world who oppose terror and support the values we treasure in the West are the good guys.

The people who oppose them are the bad guys.

Let’s listen to the message of Masood and take the fringe haters of the fundamentalist Islamist world seriously. And then: act accordingly.